1 Where have I been?

In the article the question ‘Where have I been? (Past)’ is used. while the other two questions(where am I? and where can I go?) have been addressed, this question is largely ignored – other than ‘don’t link to the current page’.

Should one implement a history remembering script? How critical is this?

The only site that have done something like this that I know of is PPK’s http://www.quirksmode.org/. The best thing that I have is the browsers ‘visited’ link color.

Is it enough or is something more necessary?

posted at 06:06 am on August 08, 2006 by Binny V Abrham

2 Link to the page you're on - sometimes?

Thanks for the interesting read. Navigation and information architecture – always a great topic.

Even though I see your point about not linking to the page your on, I think there are situations where your “never-ever”-rule needs to be relativized: That is dynamic content.

I think it is a valid appoach to allow the user to refresh the site by clicking the link of the active navigation element again.

It can be very annoying to be forced to leave and return to the page in order to refresh the content – espacially if the site uses frames and F5 doesn’t work properly. But even if F5 is an option: If time is a relevant concept of your website, shouldn’t refreshing be a concept of your site’s navigation?

Tim

posted at 06:12 am on August 08, 2006 by Tim Fischbach

3 Untitled

It can be very annoying to be forced to leave and return to the page in order to refresh the content – espacially if the site uses frames and F5 doesn’t work properly

I am constantly refreshing pages with links to themselves, especially in online stores because I know exactly where to go to click. Sites like news.google.com or news sites that are updated are often refreshed multiple times to check for new news.

On the other hand, functionality like the “refresh” button on Newstoday is really really useful and I think a quite valid “link to itself” to refresh a frame. Maybe that would be a better way of loading dynamic content again and again.

posted at 06:44 am on August 08, 2006 by Andrew Beeston

4 The one thing I miss...

The one thing I miss is the use of breadcrumbs. When you use them it is always clear to a user where he is. I strongly reccommend breadcrumbs for almost every site.

posted at 07:05 am on August 08, 2006 by André Scholten

5 past present and future

http://industries.phloe.net/

posted at 07:27 am on August 08, 2006 by Rasmus Fløe

6 past present and future...

(bloody enter button)

...as I was about to say; the concepts of the article matches exactly what I arrived at when trying to come up with my very own minimalistic navigation concept – but the example is really bad. 4 tabs hardly makes for any type of breadcrumb (past) – and it doesn’t make for a very universal navigational system – no support for heirarchy.

My own attempt at navigation can be seen in effect here:

http://industries.phloe.net/

...sure you won’t be able to have a gazillion sublinks for each page as it runs in a single line – but hey; it’s better than tabs ;)

posted at 07:42 am on August 08, 2006 by Rasmus Fløe

7 Links that go to the page you're on

Are links that go to the page you’re on really such a bad thing? Let’s see what happens when the user clicks them. The page reloads, and they realise they are where they were before. Big deal! Nothing terrible has happened.

As for Flickr, and sites which have a permanent Home graphic on every page, users have come to expect this to be in place, no matter what the page. To have it suddenly not work is surely more confusing. They may then assume it doesn’t work on all pages. I agree it’s technically wrong, but users aren’t stupid.

posted at 08:55 am on August 08, 2006 by Chris Hester

8 Untitled

I do find links to the current page useful sometimes. More often than I find them to be harmful (if it is possible), so I am sceptical about this “never link to the page you are on” rule.

posted at 09:07 am on August 08, 2006 by Rimantas Liubertas

9 Where's the proof?

This isn’t the first place I’ve seen it claimed that links pointing to the current page will confuse users. I’d like to see the evidence that supports this assertion.

If you click the “A List Apart” logo, it goes to the home page – even if you’re already there. If you click the “Where Am I?” title of the article, on the article’s page, it reloads the page. Yet you, me, and everybody else reading this seems to have found their way around this site without going into a tailspin of confusion.

As the article points out, Flickr won a Webby for its navigation despite committing this supposed sin. Maybe that’s because real users don’t actually care whether you link to the current page in the navigation or not.

posted at 10:03 am on August 08, 2006 by Chris Hunt

10 Message title (not really optional)

Issue with linking to the current page is in my opinion quite similar to links without underlines. Everyone is just so used to these things. Users might even get upset if the link to the current page does not work – is there something wrong with the link – they might ask.

I used to be disturbed by that kind of behavior, but over the time I have grown used to it, even to expect it. I believe, that not linking to current page is the right thing to do, but it would be nice to see a research done on this subject.

posted at 10:42 am on August 08, 2006 by Rene Saarsoo